


Bad With Words

by melchixr



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bickering, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Making Out, Party, Teasing, ernst and hanschen are both messes and argue in class every day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8562562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melchixr/pseuds/melchixr
Summary: “Oh, Ernst Robel!” His voice chimed, clear and much too loud for any casual conversation. It was if his address to Ernst was also him parading it to the entire class. “You look like you had a…rough morning…..” His tone was condescending and droning, as if it was his displeasure to see the other student.
Ernst’s reply came snappy and sharp with such underlying aggression that Otto had never seen before. “Only because I have to spend the first hour of it with you.”





	

“Wakey wakey, eggs and the want to die,” Ernst muttered under his breath as he walked into the cold and bland classroom of first period government. Otto couldn’t help but stare at Ernst, who he has been so excited to transfer into the class of. He had never heard his best friend say that sort of thing, or say anything that negative. Ever. But upon looking around the room, he saw the cause of all of Ernst’s semi-ironic exhaustion. And it came in tight skinny jeans and perfectly placed blond hair with only a single strand falling out of place purposely in his forehead.

“Oh, Ernst Robel!” His voice chimed, clear and much too loud for any casual conversation. It was if his address to Ernst was also him parading it to the entire class. “You look like you had a…rough morning…..” His tone was condescending and droning, as if it was his displeasure to see the other student.

Ernst’s reply came snappy and sharp with such underlying aggression that Otto had never seen before. “Only because I have to spend the first hour of it with you.”

The other boy was made up of a broad chest and stunning, yet scary, smile. It definitely made Otto’s little heart flutter for a split second before realizing that he was in their group’s token hetero-relationship and it was time to keep up appearances.

“Don’t kid yourself, Ernst. I’m perfectly aware that this is the highlight of your day…” He shrugged and moved to his seat from the teacher’s desk, who looked completely exhausted by the students. But it seemed like this was a near daily occurrence in this class.

Ernst bustled to the desk right in front of the boy, completely forgetting Otto in his wake. He was flushed red, frustrated, and only focussed on the blond.”I’m not that pathetic, Hanschen.”

Otto knew the name. He heard a lot about Hanschen. President of the senior class, drove a Jaguar to school and doesn’t know how to park, according to Ilse, and once sucked a guy off on the ferris wheel at the county fair before their junior year.

But that last one was just a highly accepted rumor.

“Are you quite certain on that, pal?” Hanschen spat before the pair both crashed into their respective seats, one right in front of the other.

From his seat in the back of the room, Otto watched as the two spent the period bickering. Hanschen would poke Ernst with his pencil then claim he didn’t. Ernst would purposefully jab Hanschen with his elbow. At any free moment where the teacher was not speaking, Ernst would turn around and find something to argue with Hanschen over.

The teacher just looked at the two like he was watching a trainwreck. But he didn’t fight it. After three months of school being in session. He had learned not to get between the pair bickering like toddlers.

Otto would soon begin to see Hanschen everywhere. And where Hanschen Rilow was, Ernst Robel was quick to follow. Most of the time, it was a passing glare in the hallway or a sneer in the cafeteria. There was a point where Hanschen scoffed at Ernst in the hallway during break and Otto was sure he and Georg would have to hold him back.

Ernst wouldn’t hurt a fly. But he would gladly curb stomp Hanschen Rilow.

Melchior assured them every once in awhile that Hanschen wasn’t all that bad, most of the time when Ernst wasn’t there to defend his hatred.

“He’s not bad at all. I promise you. If you just sit down and talk to him, he’s hilarious,” Melchior muttered between bites of banana nut muffin. He passed it over to Ernst, who took a bite for himself. “So, that’s why I invited him this weekend.”

“What the fuck?!” Ernst sputtered, spitting pieces of the school breakfast, plastic like pastry at Melchior’s binder.

Otto leaned over to inject himself between the AP student and Ernst’s hissy fit. “I uh… don’t think that’s a really good idea, Melchi. There’s bad blood between the two of them. “

“Well make it good blood, Robel. Because I like Hanschen and he’s coming, you big baby.”

—

It was barely eight o'clock when Ernst arrived, Otto trailing him nervously after listening to Ernst scream rant the entire ride there. Hopefully, he got it all out of my system and was ready to be at least civil with Hanschen.

“Where is that devil?” He hissed the moment the door opened. Okay, civil was out of the question. Moritz, who was standing in the doorway, just looked confused. “Hanschen Rilow. I’m looking for Hanschen.” Ernst was quick to clarify before entering. It seemed to shock Moritz as much as it shocked Otto the first time he saw Ernst so venomous.

“Oh, Melchi told me to keep you two separate,” Moritz stated with a nod to Otto. The pair silently agreed to keep Hanschen and Ernst as far apart as possible.

Ernst took off down the hall, rolling big green eyes as he went. “Yeah right, like I’m gonna let him get away with invading my friend group. “

The Gabor farmhouse wasn’t filled to the brim. In fact, there were only about 20 or so kids there. It was still far too many for Moritz’s taste, but Ernst seemed to disregard the crowd and go straight for the kitchen. There was a circle of teens lazily chatting and giggling through the cloud of smoke. Ernst spotted Hanschen immediately, perched on top of the old fashioned cast iron stove. Melchior was directly to his left, leaning against the counter and talking Wendlas ear off.

“Ernst Robel!” Hanschen announced when he saw Ernst enter with tense and nervous steps. “Nice to see you’ve arrived…”

Ernst cringed inwardly at his voice and sent his mind spinning off to find something clever to spit out. But Anna cut off his train of thought by wheeling over to tug at Ernst’s hand. “You came! We were afraid you wouldn’t!”

“What? Why wouldn’t?” He tensely bent down and hugged the blond girl to his side

“Melchi said you wouldn’t.”

Ernst looked from Anna’s bloodshot eyes to Melchior and saw the sandy haired boy shrug with a sort of ‘what do you expect’ expression.

Ernst would have been offended if he had another second to think. But before he could, Hanschen leapt from his spot, gargoyle-like and walked fluidly to Ernst in the doorway. “Well, are you going to stay there all night or would you care to join?”

“What exactly would I be joining?” Asked Ernst before he fully looked around the room and saw Ilse perched on a stool with a pipe firmly pressed to her lips. “Oh…” his gaze slowly trailed back to Hanschen, who had seemed to have taken another step towards Ernst, making him feel awfully claustrophobic even though he easily had three inches on Hanschen. For reasons still unknown to him, he struggled to get breath into his lungs with Hanschen looking up at him under a curtain of straw blond hair. His eyes were the same shade of blue of the pond on Moritz’s property that froze every winter and they would play on as children.

It was probably that thought of childish glee making Ernst’s stomach flip.

“I think I’m good….” Ernst muttered and walked over to the counters where Ilse sat, pushing that feeling down over and over again. He didn’t feel that way. He couldn’t possibly feel that way about Hanschen RIlow, the pretentious, snobby, dimpled, rosy cheeked, perfect smile-

Fuck.

He let the pipe pass over him, from Anna to Wendla. Maybe if he didn’t look at Hanschen it would stop. When he finally looked up to check if Hanschen was looking at him, his suspicions were met with the fact that Hanschen’s eyes were locked on him. He seemed to have been staring at Ernst, specifically his face. But, still, he didn’t seem to notice that Ernst had caught him looking. That was until Ernst had lifted his hand and waved at Hanschen awkwardly. Immediately, Hanschen went a flushed pink and averted his eyes to the ground.

That boy wasn’t the same boy he saw in gov every day. Not the boy who poked and sneered at him every day. He wasn’t yelling sarcastic comments or laughing too loudly at a backhanded joke. He was nervous and hesitant and made Ernst almost smile.

God, he was smiling. Smiling and blushing and staring at his hands like an idiot. The pipe passed over him one more times then two, then three and he began to wonder how long he had been in this room.THis room with Hanschen.

Yeah. He had to get away from Hanschen so his mind stopped fucking spinning.

Without a word mentioned to anyone, Ernst was one, tearing off out of the kitchen and back down the hallway. The teens collected in the living room and hallways only watched with slight wonder as Ernst speed walked away. He tried over and over the same method. Erase those thoughts. Erase Hanschen RIlow from every aspect of his life. He couldn’t face him after tonight, much less think of him. Maybe he should just transfer out of gov, out of the school, leave this party as fast as physically possible. Never look at Hanschen Rilow again and-

“Ernst, where the hell are you going?”

And when he spun around, he was met face to face with the worst possible outcome.

“Nowhere, Hanschen, I need a breath of fresh air. That’s it.”

The blond boy followed Ernst farther down the hall, his fists clenched stiffly at his sides. “You’re not leaving, are you, Ernst?”

_Yes._

“No.”

“This isn’t about me, is it?”

_It always is._

“No. It’s not.”

“Ernst, please!”  Hanschen finally sputtered as the pair reached the back door. The taller of the two’s hand was already on the brass knob. “I know something’s wrong. What is it?”

“Why the fuck should I tell you?” The words flew out at the speed of sound, jam packed with bitterness and a venom he wasn’t quite aware that he had in him. This obviously threw Hanschen off a bit, eyes wide in shock. Goddamn it, the eyes. Ernst couldn’t stand those fuckign eyes.

Hanschen reached out, wrapping his large hand around Ernst’s slim and bony wrist. “Because I fucking care about you.”

“Bullshit.”

Ernst shoved the door open, hoping to escape into the  night air and let himself wander for a while. But all he found was a screened in porch and Hanschen following close behind. “Where were you trying to go?” He asked Ernst with genuine concern and disregarded the fact that he was about to be punched in the face by the looks of it.

“Away from you,” Ernst grumbled and crashed into a wicker patio chair. At this point he had completely given up being alone. Because if he knew anything, he knew that Hanschen Rilow was as stubborn as a mule. He could have been out here the rest of the night. “But that obviously won’t work….”

He was surprised to see hanschen sit on the floor beside his chair, looking up at Ernst with wide eyed wonder. “You knew I would be here. Why’d you decide to come if you didn’t want to be around me?”

“This isn’t about you, for christ sake!” He snapped back. All of Hanschen’s aggression seemed to drain away. And that’s when Ernst realized that Hanschen Rilow was all bark and no bite, like some little chihuahua. When they were all alone, he wasn’t even mad.

This is the first time they had ever been alone.

“I think we both know that it is.”

Ernst’s brow furrowed, trying his hardest to stay mad at the other student. “See. THis is just like you would react. Stuck up and conceded. Why’d I think You’d ever be different because we….”

“Because we what?” The shorter of the pair asked, sitting up on his knees.

“Nothing.”

“Because we’re alone?”

Ernst’s gaze moved to his lap, nervously tugging at his bottom lip with his teeth without even thinking about it. His words hung in the air for a minute, the only sounds coming from the loud crickets and frogs from the fields around Melchior’s house.

“I hope that you know that….When I’m around you in front of people….I get so nervous that I….I don’t even know what to do!” When Ernst looked down at Hanschen to see that he was now sat with his knees up at his chest and staring off into the night outside. “I just never know what to say so I say the weirdest shit and it never comes out right so I just default into being snappy and rude because to be honest….I don’t know what on earth else to do.”

“And…When were alone?” Without thinking, Ernst leaned forward in his seat. “Do you act any different without a whole class of people watching you?”

“Yes,” His eyes fluttered closed and Ernst was confused as to what he was even doing.

Until he felt their lips meet.

And it clicked.

Hanschen’s kiss was confident, fond and tasted like Coca-Cola. Ernst felt like he was falling into it for a while, just feeling Hanschen kissing him like the world hung in the balance of their embrace. Then he realized that he should kiss back.

This was no longer Hanschen kissing Ernst and praying that he didn’t get punched. This was Ernst and Hanschen kissing each other like their lives depended on in and they were praying that no one caught them.

But Hanschen couldn’t care less if someone did. It stopped being something that mattered if anyone burst onto the porch.

The kiss lasted until Ernst’s lungs felt like they were collapsing and his head was spinning from lack of oxygen. “That’s what you were trying to say where you called me pathetic every day at eight am?” He questioned between gasps for air.

“Listen, I’m bad with words, alright?”

**Author's Note:**

> i live for this troupe tbh. anyway, this was originally posted on my tumblr @likeinlxtin! i really really hope you enjoyed this!! feedback is appreciated (and begged for)


End file.
